4

I threw myself on the grass and sobbed.

Who was the angry woman? Why did she kill me? Did all the gods hate me?

Please forgive me for anything I’ve done! Please spare Troy!

When my tears finally stopped, I stood up and let the laurel go. I’d wept myself dry. I couldn’t bear to look ahead again for the events that led to my death—I could guess. Troy must have fallen in the war I’d glimpsed. If my parents hadn’t died, I’d have been separated from them—but probably at least Father was dead.

Another time, I’d see. For now, I wanted to peer just a minute ahead.

Soon, in the women’s quarters, Mother would stretch in her bed, roll over, and go back to sleep. How dear her face was, and her hand too, curled above the sheet.

In a minute, Aminta would sit up and wake Melo to ask where I was.

In the kitchen, a serving girl would scratch her arm. The kitchen air would be tangy with the scent of sardines. In his bedroom, Father would splash water on his face from the basin by his bed. He would straighten, his expression serious while beads of water coursed along his cheeks. He’d probably be planning the tasks of the day and what would be best for Troy.

Apollo hadn’t cursed Helenus’s gift, and Helenus loved our parents too. Together, we’d save them and the city. I was still lucky to be able to see the future.

The god said that the dread ship of fate is almost impossible to turn. Almost meant it could be done.

I left the sacred grove, remembering my yesterday self, who hoped to see the future to save someone from biting into a spoiled scone.

Troy loomed ahead, its white limestone wall tinted pink by the dawn. Though I’d seen it dozens of times from the outside and even more times from within the city, I saw it fresh now.

How bright it was! Above the shining limestones, the wall’s height was doubled by a second wall, this one made of mud bricks and wooden beams, striped horizontally with green, purple, and coral paint. Father declared our wall stronger, better made, and handsomer than the wall of any city he’d ever visited.

What army could breach such a wall? Would Zeus himself destroy us?

The east gate arched over me. Inside, Maera wagged her whole rear half at me.

I crouched. “Did you spend the night here, Little Faithful? Whatever your future, I’ll save you.” I stroked her back, then straightened. “Come!” I started off along the inside of the wall, rather than entering the Way of the Immortals.

Maera ran ahead of me and kept looking back, her mouth agape in a doggy smile.

The god had said that I couldn’t see the near future of myself or another prophet, which seemed to be true. I couldn’t foretell where my twin would be in a few minutes, but I already knew that he rode out of Troy every morning to exercise his horse.

We turned right into narrow streets, winding along gaily painted but shabby houses. A knot of seven men turned out of a lane, arguing and laughing. A gang of girls and boys raced by, chasing a piglet. Ordinary Troy, but precious too.

Without foreseeing, I imagined what might come: this street aflame; these children, wailing; the air choking them, hot dust swirling around their ankles.

I stopped. Maera sat.

Hadn’t the god of prophecy known I would push him away? He must have checked ahead to see.

My mouth fell open. When he looked, there had to have been a different future! In that one, I didn’t refuse him. I might have chosen to be his oracle, or he might have loved me while I was still half-asleep, without me meaning to.

I had already changed the future, effortlessly. Now I’d put my whole self into it and hope that would be enough. “We can do it, Maera!” I set off again.

She barked once, an enthusiastic Yes!

Helenus slouched outside the stable yard’s wooden gate. He was taller and stockier than I was and looked as old as his rival, Deiphobus, who was four years older at eighteen.

I rushed to him with Maera frolicking at my side. When I reached him, my olive eyes gazed into his olive eyes. His were red-rimmed, as I supposed mine were too.

Maera nuzzled his legs.

He gripped my hands. “You can see too?”

I nodded.

“I wondered.” He gestured at a wooden bench under a spindly oak tree. Not a dog lover (or even liker), he ignored Maera.

We sat facing the stable yard gate. Maera lay at my feet.

Helenus was in all my earliest memories. We fell sick together from the same childhood ailments. We used to argue over the importance of the two-minute difference in our age. I was older, which he didn’t like. When we fought, he was stronger but ticklish, as I was not. He hated the helplessness of being made to laugh.

He said, “I was walking back from the festival with our brothers—not including Deiphobus—when light seemed to pour into me. I groaned. Everyone looked at me. I stammered something and waved them on.” He broke off. “You understand.”

I nodded. “For me, it felt like dust motes.”

“At home, I went to my room. I lay on my bed, where understanding came. Most of it was dreadful.”

What I’d seen so far was, but most of the rest was dreadful too?

“Do you know why we have this power? It’s from Apollo, isn’t it?”

“I went to his altar after the games.” I was too embarrassed to tell him about the god starting to kiss me. “I angered him somehow. He cursed my power so that no one will believe me, but he said they’ll believe you.”

“Oh. Ah.”

After that, we were silent. In the stable, a horse neighed.

“I saw my death.” I swallowed more tears. “And Hector’s body lay in the dust. I know Troy burned. Then I stopped looking. How much did you see?” If his voice told me, rather than my eyes seeing it, the news might be easier to take in. “Did you see yourself die?”

“Yes. I’ll survive the war and will live to be old.”

I hugged him around the shoulders. “Oh, I’m glad you’ll be old!” I laughed—I was eager to laugh. “Ancient, I hope! Others survived too?” I watched his face.

“Mother, but she’ll be enslaved.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. He stared at the sturdy oak gate. “The survivors will be slaves.”

Ai! I must have been a slave on that ship. “You’ll be a slave?”

“No.” He didn’t explain.

I asked again, “How much did you see?”

“Everything. From now until your death and mine much later.”

“Apollo told me that the ship of fate is hard to turn, but he didn’t say it was impossible. We’ll make a plan. You can warn Father and Mother.”

He let my hands go and stood. “The war will be about a Greek woman named Helen. She’ll come here, but the Greeks will want her back. They’ll fight for her.”

We had to stop her from coming!

He beamed despite his bloodshot eyes. “Cassandra, you’ve never seen anyone so lovely. Her lips! Her eyes, as big as . . .” He struggled. “Er . . . as big as eggs—but they don’t look like eggs! They look like beautiful eyes.”

I grinned at his awkwardness, but why was he telling me about her?

“It isn’t just her beauty. It’s the way she looks at people.” His voice cracked. “She needs me. Only I can make her happy.”

I swallowed a smile. How could he make her happy? He was my age, and wasn’t she grown up? “How old is she?”

He waved the question away. “My important moment won’t come for years. But now, just seeing her in the future, I love her.”

I stopped breathing. He was going to tell me he wouldn’t try to save Troy because of this woman.

He said it. “I won’t do anything that could keep her away—or even make her leave quickly.”

I reached down and petted Maera’s head. “You were just pretending to be sad.”

He fell back a step. “I wasn’t!”

I stood too and so did Maera. “You can go to this Helen instead of waiting here for her. I’ll help you.” How would I help him? “We’ll know where she’s going to be. You can join her there.”

He tossed back his head. “She’s far away in Sparta. I could die going there. If we don’t meddle, her arrival is certain. Cassandra . . .” He came close and took my hand again. “Our gift can’t answer the question, What if? I’ve tried. You can imagine helping me reach Helen, but we can’t tell what will happen.”

“I marched with a stone cutting my foot because I didn’t want anything bad to befall Troy. Even without prophecy, we can create the future we want.” I squeezed his hand, hating my next words: “Meanwhile, I’ll help you against Deiphobus.” I smiled the smile that always succeeded with Father.

He swung my hand away. “Keep your help. I want to bring my brother low myself. In the future, he’s supposed to marry Helen. That’s the part I hope to change. She should marry me.”

He didn’t care about altering the future to save my parents—or me.

“Cassandra, I believe that fate is stronger than prophecy, and chance is powerful too. You may live. I may die.” He unlatched the stable yard gate.

I shouted, “The gods hate heartless people! You’ll be punished.” But I wasn’t sure.

He entered the stable. I heard him speaking to his horse. I shouldn’t have told him that no one would believe my prophecies.

Since changing Troy’s future would be entirely up to me, I had to know all of it. I sat and clutched the edge of the bench at my sides.

I saw again the young man in the copper cavern and noticed a boy with him, his son, judging by the boy’s features. The two sat on separate couches. I watched, listened, smelled. The man, called Paris, as I discovered, promised someone I couldn’t see not to be tempted. His son—named Corythus—lowered himself sideways to recline on his couch. But his head didn’t go all the way down. He seemed to be resting on an invisible pillow or lap.

Paris spoke to the boy and to a being I couldn’t see, named Oenone, who could be a deity, since Apollo said my gift wouldn’t extend to them. Or she could be a seer, like I was, since he’d also told me I wouldn’t be able to see myself or any other seers in the near future, which this was, just two days from today.

The scene continued and moved on to other scenes with other invisible beings. Paris pronounced the names of three goddesses—Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite—and seemed to be addressing them.

Gradually, understanding came, though still with gaps.

I bit my cheeks and tasted blood. I foresaw it all, except my death. Why watch that twice?

My mouth felt dry. I opened my eyes and breathed slowly, taking in the earthy smell of horses. My sandaled feet were gray from the dusty road. Maera whined. What would happen to her?

I hadn’t looked at that.

I hugged her, and she licked my face. Then I gazed ahead. Hurrah! She was going to live to a great age for a dog. In nine years, a band of Amazons would come to Troy and the youngest of them would save her from being bitten by a snake. Not much later, before the fall of the city, I would entrust Maera to a shepherdess whose hut would be outside the city wall, who would keep her safe and be her last mistress. Giving up my dog would make me almost as sad as everything else.

But this vision, at least, augured well for someone—Maera.

I thought about the rest of what I’d seen and refused to cry again.

How rickety was the ladder that ascended to Troy’s ruin! So many rungs seemed unlikely. If I took out just one of them, the climb would be broken. We’d be saved.

I had an idea.